To comply with the 3GPP2 CDMA packet data services standard “3GPP2 C.S0017-012-A v1.0: Data Service Options for Spread Spectrum Systems: Service Options 33 and 66” (also known as TIA-707.12-B), a mobile station with a dormant packet data session is required to “reconnect” its packet data service whenever it detects a change in System ID (SID), Network ID (NID) or Packet Zone ID (PZID) parameter associated with the wireless network. The reconnect process is required to maintain PPP (point-to-point protocol) connectivity in case the wireless network needs to move the so-called “R-P” interface (also known as A10 and A11) between the Radio Access Network (RAN) and the Packet Data Servicing Node (PDSN) associated with the packet data service or in some cases needs to assign a new IP address to the mobile station. The reconnect process requires the mobile station to send an Origination message with Packet Data Service option and Data Ready to Send (DRS) bit set to 0. The wireless network may assign a traffic channel to the mobile station when the reconnect process takes place. A feature called “packet zone hysteresis” is included in 3GPP2 C.S0017-012-A v1.0 in order to minimize the number of reconnect attempts when the mobile station moves back and forth between two systems (such a SID/NID/PZID boundary). To implement the hysteresis feature, a mobile station keeps track of visited systems in a list which is called “Packet Zone List” in 3GPP2 C.S0017-012-A—each entry except the most recently added entry has an expiry timer. If a mobile station revisits a system whose timer has not expired yet and it does not have any data to send, then it refrains from reconnecting its data service until the hysteresis timer has expired.
To comply with the CDMA air-interface standard “3GPP2 C.S0005-Upper Layer (Layer 3) Signaling Standard for cdma2000 Spread Spectrum Systems” (also known as TIA2000.5) a mobile station may be required to perform different types of access network registration. There are multiple revisions of 3GPP2 C.S0005—the first one being 3GPP2 C.S0005-0 and the most recent one being 3GPP2 C.S0005-D. An example of a registration method which is common to all revisions of 3GPP2 C.S0005 is called “zone-based registration” in which the mobile station performs registration whenever it enters a zone that is not in the mobile station's zone list. Zones are uniquely identified by a zone number (REG_ZONE) in addition to the SID and NID of the zone.